Cargill, Inc.

Cargill, Inc. is a U.S. based privately held global corporation that focuses on purchasing and trading agricultural commodities. Founded in 1865, it is the largest privately held corporation in the United States in terms of revenue. In 2018, their revenue exceeded $114 billion. Cargill employs over 166,000 employees in 66 countries. A subsidiary of Cargill Inc, Cargill Meat Solutions, recently came under fire for employee mistreatment during Covid-19.

• The meatpacking industry has always had a notorious reputation for poor working conditions and Covid-19 has only made this more apparent. Currently meat and poultry employees have among the highest illness rates of all manufacturing employees and are the least likely to report said illnesses for fear of repercussions.
• At Cargill’s High River slaughterhouse, supervisors were given N95 masks and plastic face shields while workers claim it was weeks before they were even given paper and/or cloth face masks. 900 of the plants 2,200 employees became ill with Covid-19.
• Cargill decided to not tell employees about their colleagues who were falling ill in an effort to keep everyone working. In fact, one Cargill meat plant didn’t tell employees about the illness racing through the plant until 130 employees had already tested positive. One worker even stated that he was told to remove his mask because “it was creating unnecessary fears among plant employees”. A few weeks later that worker died of Covid-19.
• According Bloomberg who interviewed 32 workers, supervisors were telling symptomatic employees without high fevers to simply take acetaminophen and keep working.